Johnny Corrupts A Religous Man
by Raxzo
Summary: Martin looked behind and saw the TV emit static. No one had turned the TV on. A million voices said 'Kill him.' So Martin did.
1. Doorbell Boy is DEAD

I gotta say, this is probably the best thing I've ever written.

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As we all know, it is human nature to eventually get tired. And our good friend Johnny C. was, much to his dismay, human.

As such, Johnny had recently grown weary of brutally slaughtering people. (Believe it or not.) He realized this when his doorbell rang and he didn't immediately fill with rage and disembowel the individual.

In his dark, macabre living room, Johnny was watching television on his busted up rotten couch. A harsh buzzing noise interrupted his precious T.V. time, so he sighed and stood up.

'_At least the screaming person was entertaining.'_ Johnny thought. The person that was connected to the doorbell had long since died and decayed.

The irritated Mr. C. opened the door and glared at the man standing there. The man, about Johnny's height, had the precise opposite look of our little insomniac. He was well built, well rested, well dressed, and pretty much a nice looking person. He wore a slight caring smile with kind, attentive blue eyes to compliment it. His neck length dark blonde hair strayed off his lovely face.

Johnny immediately hated the person.

"Hello, sir." The man began. "My name is Martin. Have you heard the word of God?"

Johnny then noticed the bible in Martin's hands. The hatred deepened.

"Sort of, but it was more of a disgruntled murmur, if you ask me." Johnny replied, leaning against his doorway.

Martin chuckled a bit. "Oh, I doubt that. You see, God is love, and he loves all of us, his childr-"

"Yes, yes, undying love, skin of gold, piss of strawberry wine, and all that shit."

Martin's smile faded.

"Let me ask you a few questions, mister _Martin_." Johnny was entirely ready to tear this person down.

"If this unimaginatively named GOD of yours was so loving and caring, why would there be so much pain in this fucking world?"

"Well…"

"Why do people steal and cheat and lie and kill each other?"

"Because…"

"Why do people kill _themselves_?"

"You see…"

"Why are people like me running around, killing every single person that decides to ring my goddamn doorbell and talk shit to me about some lazy bastard _GOD?!?"_

At this, Johnny pulled a knife on Martin, hoping to frighten him into running. It was always funny when they ran.

"I don't know." Martin said.

Normally, Johnny would have struck by now, but the murderer was a bit confused. Martin's 'I Don't Know' wasn't the same kind of reality-shattering, heart-breaking, oh-sweet-lord-my-whole-life's-a-lie kind of 'I Don't Know'.

It was the sincere kind.

The kind Johnny used.

"I mean, all my life I've been taught all this God stuff, but I don't know what it means." Martin confessed. "I just feel so… empty inside."

Johnny stared at Martin. He thought that every religious person always blindly followed some insane sermons taught by hypocritical priests.

"It's like… no one cares that what they say doesn't make sense, or that they're acting like idiots, or that I feel like killing myself."

Martin was crying. Johnny was nervous.

"Um…well…that's pretty fucked."

Martin sniffed. "Yeah, I know."

"But that's people for you."

Martin looked up. There were tears down his face. "What?"

"People. All those vexing ogres that rip you up and expect you to get up and pity them."

Johnny turned around and went back inside. He left the door open.

Martin stayed kneeling there for a moment, weeping, and then followed Johnny.

Johnny was sitting back on his couch. Martin stood at the doorway, staring at the utter disorder of the room.

"You feel depressed and pained, no?" Johnny asked.

Martin nodded, dumbfounded.

Johnny smiled darkly. "You feel like people are piles of shit in flesh business suits?"

Another nod.

"You feel God is uncaring and sluggish, if he exists at all?"

A few moments hesitation, then another nod.

Johnny's smile turned suddenly benign. "Ah, a kindred spirit! How wonderful to meet you!!"

Now Martin was confused. "I'm…sorry?"

"Don't be, friend!" Johnny leapt up from the couch. "You and I, me and you, we are of the same mindset! We hate the world of monstrosities and dumbasses we are forced to inhabit! And we both hear mean little voices!"

"Um…I don't hear voices." Martin said. He was no longer shocked, nor weepy; he actually appeared to have a glad luster to his face.

"Hmmm… Nonetheless, we share our hatred for those dupes of the human race, those so-called people!!"

Now Martin leapt up, just like Johnny. "Yes, you're right! All those idiots, they're just so…so…"

"Foolish?" Johnny supplied.

"Foolish! Yes! So foolish in all their problems and no solutions!"

"YES! And that is why they must pain!"

"Yes, pain! Torture! Hurt!"

"DEATH!"

"_**DEATH!!!!!" **_Martin's eyes took on a twitchy, paranoid look. The two began to laugh violently together.

"HAHAHA!!!"

"AH-HAHAHAH!!!"

"**KYAH-AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!"**

"**NYA-KAH-AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!"**

The laughter slowly died down.

"Ah, yes. Death." Johnny mused, wiping a tear from his eye.

"Yes. Kill." Martin's left eye twitched.

Johnny smiled. "Well, if you insist…"

Johnny picked up the knife from before. Rapidly, before Martin could react, Johnny shoved the knife straight through Martin's neck, pinning him to the wooden wall.

"Oh, and my name's Johnny C. But you can call me Nny."

Johnny shoved the knife upwards, tearing Martin's skull in half. Martin's body collapsed, leaking blood. There was a nasty gash in the wall where the knife had moved.

Johnny looked at his knife and smiled. He ran outside laughing. Martin rotted on the floor.


	2. Nevaeh This

**Alright, this story has a bit of a story behind it. I'd originally written a second chapter for this story (let's call it JCARM) in hopes of making a tidy little five-chapter story arc, but that never really panned out. I got bored. So I had posted the second chapter, but later scrapped it and made this a one-shot. HOWEVER, lately I've had ideas for this run through my head like wicked fast jackalopes on an empty football field, so I decided to continue it. I tried hard to both recreate the second chapter and make a better one, and i think that went well.**

**And the Author's Note on the last chapter was _really_ pompous sounding. But you knew that already.**

* * *

Martin lay on the ground, eyes closed.

He wasn't sure what just happened. There was darkness all around, not just in his vision, but in his hearing, in his olfactories, his touch and his taste. It assaulted him. It insulted him. It stung him in ways he couldn't previously imagine.

His eyelids snapped open, and the darkness dispersed.

Martin was on his back, looking at the sky. It was pretty normal, a light blue with puffy clouds floating about. Something was off, though. Little... _things_ in the distance. Figures of some sort. An inhuman sort.

Suddenly, there they were. Little viscous blob-ball creatures with wings on their backs were flying around Martin's head. They seemed playful enough, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong with them. They had bulgy eyes and tongues that hung out of their mouths. They were just... off.

Martin was vaguely aware that his muscles were aching. Nonetheless, he had to try and sit up and figure out where in the world he was. He made a gross attempt like a situp, reaching his arms out. He then noticed his sleeves. They were once nicely tailored, well kept, but now, somehow, they'd grown tattered, dirty and ripped at the edges. The same was true for his pants and black tie, he saw.

Then everything doubled.

The whole world split into two different angles, the left side shaking and moving up and down; the right, maintaining the straightforward world view. This caused a massive vertigo attack as Martin tried to stand up and get his bearings. Through the shifting confusion of his twisted sight, Martin could see the blob-ball creatures look at him with fear, them fluttering their wings and flying away.

He almost wanted to cry to them to wait, to not leave him alone, but he remembered that they were some sort of mutant bird things and thought better of it. With a single step, Martin couldn't stand the confusion any more and fell to his knees. The ground was as weird as the blob-balls. It was some sort of grungy, dirty material; it looked like a dirty cloud, but it felt as hard as concrete.

"Ahh!" he cried out. Something had poked into his palm as he placed his hand onto the ground. Carefully, Martin plucked the object out of his hand; it was a sewing needle, with a long black thread attached to it.

_Why on earth would someone leave a needle on the ground? _he thought. _Someone is just bound to get stabbed with..._

Stabbed.

Stabbed with a knife.

Johnny.

"Oh god," Martin said. Suddenly everything seemed to snap into place: the split vision wasn't split vision, it was his _head_, the ground was made of clouds...

Looking up he saw a gate. A long, golden gate. He stood up and made a mad dash for the gate, eyes closed. Then, _BAM_, he grasped the bars. The gate was just as dirty and grungy as the ground. Even so, he could make out his reflection on the metal.

Martin's head, his entire skull, his once handsome face had been cut cleanly in half. The right side of his shocked face remained upright and lifted, somehow, while the left side shook and dangled back and forth, lagging and wagging like a comical toy. He could see the sliced gray matter and muscles in his head, like a cutout in a science book. Only he was still alive. Somehow.

But, thinking about it, he wasn't alive. He'd been sliced in the brain.

Martin was dead. And he was in Heaven.

Martin stood there, left side of his head bobbing. Slowly, he looked at the thread and needle in his hand. He took the needle and, carefully, began to sew up his head, starting with his neck.

_This is absurd, _Martin thought, criss-crossing the thread. _How did this happen? I was walking door to door, I met Johnny and..._

It was coming back. It didn't make sense, in retrospect. Why would he just suddenly open up to that maniac? But then he remembered what it was like: the sense that Johnny made, the veil of security he'd broken with his words, his admission that there was no God.

But there obviously was.

So how did he get here?

Martin finished repairing his head and snapped the thread. Now he was able to see himself better in the gate's reflection.

Other than a grotesque mark running down the middle of the face, he looked pretty much the same. But... different. His skin was a smidge paler, his eyes were a more icy, colder blue, his entire frame was simply gaunter, creepier, and of course his clothes were more beaten up.

Looking to the left of himself, Martin saw a small podium. Since this was the first sign that there could be humans in Heaven, he walked toward it.

There was nothing special about the podium; wooden, with a thick, closed book sitting on it. Hanging on the front of the podium was a little "Will return at" sign with a clock below the words. The clock had no hands.

All of a sudden, part of the gate cracked open vertically, and two golden doors swung open.

Martin only stared for a moment before muttering "Makes a _load_ of sense..." and walking through the gateway.


	3. Eyeball Chair is as Doorbell Boy is

**I use the hyphen quite liberally, don't I?**

* * *

"Since when was Heaven this bad?" Martin asked.

He'd stepped through the rusty golden gates in hopes of finding some sort of angelic choir or all-powerful deity to answer his questions, but there was nothing. No people, no landmarks, nothing. Martin looked up into the sky. Same boring light blue with puffy white clouds. No help there.

He started to walk forward, head still pointed upwards, when he, entirely unexpectedly, tripped over a person. Martin smashed headfirst into the cloud-ground.

"Oww..." he muttered. "Sorry, I didn't..."

Martin looked at the person and saw that he was sitting on an uneventful black chair. Martin looked around and saw that there had appeared more people, dozens, hundreds, sitting on black chairs.

"...see you..." He stood up and looked at all the people. They were all evenly spaced from each other. All kinds of people: school children, middle-aged businessmen, old drecrepits, nuns, etc., all sitting perfectly unmoving, not even for blinking.

The whole of paradise was a boring, unsanitary dump.

"This... this can_not_ be Heaven... I, I... I mean, this is, this is... _stupid_." Martin said. He began to breathe harder.

He waved his hands in front of peoples faces, snapping his fingers, clapping his hands, trying to get they're attention.

Martin started to shake from the nevousness. "C'mon... COME _ON_!! Talk to me!!" He screamed at the people's faces. Nothing.

No one twitched. No one noticed Martin and his frighteningly scarred, angry, terrified face.

This was far from what he'd always been taught about Heaven. Mounds of people rejoicing, some sort of shining God-type person on a massive golden throne, multitudes of angel choirs singing a high-pitched noise of biblical rumor. Compared to that, all Martin was seeing was just...

"Shit." Martin said.

The fact that he wasn't one of them, part of Heaven, that even though he'd lived his whole life as religous as possible, he still wasn't...

..._in._

"Hey, you ungrateful little creation!" Something behind Martin called.

He spun around and got a good look at a parody of a microscopic gnome of God (, he only knew it was God because of the shirt it was wearing with the word 'GOD' printed on front,) sitting on a mutant eyeball-creature-chair. The chair moved and walked toward Martin, placing God directly in front of the man.

Needless to say, this freaked Martin out.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH THIS PLACE!!" Martin exploded, flailing his arms.

The God-a-ma-thingy yawned.

"Oh, and I suppose _you_, with all you're little flaws and imperfections could do _sooo _much better...?" The God-midget replied.

"SHIT-! _YESSSS!!i" _Martin screamed. He gripped the thread and needle in his hand. There was still enough thread left on the needle to use it.

"I KNOW HOW THINGS SHOULD BE!! YOU DON'T, YOU...!"

He dropped the needle. It dangled by the thread in his hand.

"YOU...!!"

His eyes stung with salty excretion.

"...!!"

* * *

In the span of seconds, Martin's act was over, and the rest of his existance was determined. Here is what happened:

* * *

Martin moved so fast, even God had a hard time noticing it. The little eyeball monster holding God's easy-chair suddenly recoiled back, and Martin's needle was directly through it.

The thread was taut and black against the dirty cloud background, wrapped around Martin's hand.

A blood-type goo dripped out of the wound in the monster. Pain began to register, and it let loose a shocked cry. Martin's eyes were wide and furious.

Martin gripped the cloud-ground and shoved with all his body weight. He wrenched his hand into the eye of the monster, and the monster slackened.

Martin stood up as the dead eyeball monster collapsed, sending God toppling backwards. None of the chair-people noticed.

"Alright, y'know what?!" God said, getting up, angry. "I was gonna cut you some slack, maybe stick you in Purgatory for a few centuries, but NO!! You hafta go and kill my La-Z-Boy!!"

Martin stared at God with Johnny's eyes.

"Well, you wanna be _sooo _rebellious like your lil' pal _Johnny_, fine! Just see how you like Hell!!"

Martin's right eye twitched. "What the _FUCK _do you mean by-"

Martin's body disappeared in a POOF of dirty smoke. God got up and brushed the cloud off of his robe.

None of the chair-people moved.


	4. Lleh Ylenol

Martin was angry at God.

That fucking deity didn't understand anything about the universe he created. All he did was sit on his stupid chair monster and sleep.

Well, not anymore. The chair monster was dead.

Through his deafening rage, Martin heard vague words coming from the pissed little God and dripping chair monster blood on his hand.

Then he heard the word 'Johnny'.

His brain twitched for an instant as he absorbed what God said about him and Johnny.

"What the _FUCK_ do you mean by-" was all Martin could get out before the world became smoke and there was pain.

Martin felt a steel rod shoot into his spine and fire pure hurt into his form. He spasmed and tightened all his muscles, his eyes vibrating too much to see all the declining blackness around him. The sting from the needle wisping around and cutting his skin was barely noticeable against the violent backdrop of his falling to damnation.

He wanted to grab his head and scream, just to know he could, but he kept falling. No footholds to grab, no bars to reach for. Just pain and sinking.

Suddenly, his body froze, and the darkness around him became dramatic and upsetting.

Martin saw all around, still plummeting, feeling the thread and needle dangle around in his hand, wanting to strangle his neck with that thread, break his eardrum with that needle, rip his fingernails out and cut himself with them; ANYTHING to get out of the malignant plunge he was in.

And:

_BAM!!_

Martin felt his bones creak and his organs slosh when he hit the bitter concrete. The thread was still gripped in his hand, along with the needle. He kept his eyes closed, trying to make the pain he was feeling go away, when he realized, he wasn't feeling any pain.

He opened his eyes. He had an idea of where he was, falling from Heaven and maddening God and all, but his sight gave him assurance of where it was he fell to.

Bored green, pupil-less eyes attached to a human skull with ram horns stared him down from ten feet in the air.

Martin clasped the concrete. There was a body for the head, he knew, but that was uninteresting; those bored eyes bored into him, and he couldn't stop looking.

"Oh, good," the skull said, it's voice soothing. Even though it was a skull, the mouth moved as if there were lips there, forming the words. "We get another visitor."

The head turned and moved away. Martin felt relief spread within him, the eyes gone. Then, he blinked. He jumped to his feet and saw the tall monster trotting away from him.

Martin looked himself over, searching for wounds, and knew that he wouldn't find any. The whole afterlife thing was confusing, but he was starting to catch on. You could hurt yourself all you want here and it would never show.

His clothes were still beaten up, his skin was still paler than he was used to, and Martin suspected that his face was still scarred down the middle.

So he looked around.

There were buildings, like in a great city. Not great in the sense of cultural wealth; great as in super-massive and overwhelming. Skyscrapers tore up at a maroon sky. Martin had to squint to tell that the sky wasn't a sky; it was a roof, made of reddened rock.

Martin looked down, seeing gray, diminished asphalt. To each side was a sidewalk. He was on a street.

He almost tried to run out of the way of oncoming cars when his head supplied him with another observation: the street was empty.

Martin had to look around again to see that there was indeed no one in or around any of the buildings.

In his gazing, he noticed that the tall monster had shrunk; was walking away and almost gone.

_Okay, _Martin thought, _this is Hell, so that's either a demon or The Devil, so…_

Another quick look at the empty cityscape around him made Martin yell:

"Wait up!!"

Martin ran up to the monster. It had stopped and slouched its shoulders. He barely heard it sigh from such an elevated mouth.

"Th… This is Hell… right?" Martin said. This thing was a _lot_ scarier than God ever was.

The monster looked lazily at Martin. "No, this is Pismo Beach. You must've taken that left turn at Albuquerque that Bugs Bunny always seems to miss."

The monster continued walking.

Martin's right eye twitched. "Did… you just make _fun_ of me?"

The monster seemed to be enjoying himself as he continued to walk. "Oh, what, you don't like a little play during your temporary damnation?"

Martin swung his arm quickly, and the needle flew out.

The monster's arm wrenched back, causing him to stop. He looked at his long, gangly arm and saw Martin's thread and needle wrapped around his wrist. Martin held the thread tight in his hand, a boulder tethered to the monster. The monster shook the thread off his hand, Martin allowing him to. The monster walked up in front of Martin, slowly, his neck at practically a ninety degree angle just looking at Martin.

"What do you mean 'temporary' and 'another visitor'? What the hell's going on!?"

The monster replied: "'Temporary' is a word meaning 'for a limited time only'. You're not staying here forever. Pretty lucky, too. Most people here _deserve_ to be here."

"So, what, you're The Devil?"

The monster rolled his eyes. "Senor Diablo, actually. But yes. The _Devil_."

Diablo seemed to hate that term.

"Alright, fine, how about the 'visitor' comment? Does this kind of thing happen often?"

Diablo smiled at this. "No, actually. Only twice in existence, so far."

Martin pulled the thread and needle back into his hand. "So who was the first?"

Diablo turned around, smiling. "Oh, I really shouldn't tell you; it'd only get you angry, and I can't afford to clean up the messes your tantrum might make."

"TELL ME!!"

Diablo seemed to like Martin's suffering, which only made him madder.

And that made Diablo like it more.

"Who do you hate more than anyone, thing, or place in the universe right now, this moment?"

Martin glared daggers at Diablo.

"_Other_ than me." Diablo said, rolling his eyes again.

Martin furrowed his brow in concentration, but only for a second. His eyebrows shot up as he remembered what God had said before he was sent here.

His brain hated his mouth as it formed the name:

"_Johnny?_"

Diablo did nothing.

Martin's eyes bugged out and his teeth practically cracked in gritting anger.

"_JOHNNY!?_"

A small sonic boom cracked the air as Martin's needle shot from his hand, thread trailing behind. With nary a resistance, the needle shot straight through the concrete cinderblocks of a nearby by building. With an almighty, fury-induced tug, Martin ripped the thread and needle out of the wall. The building shook back and forth for a second before toppling down.

Martin stared at the falling building, no fear, no movement. With an immense THUD, the structure crashed down on top of Martin.

Dark gray bricks cracked and toppled around, burying the asphalt of the empty streets. Aged dust rose into the air.

Bricks in the middle of the giant pile fell away as Martin climbed out, unharmed.

He reeled his thread back around his fingers, holding onto the needle.

With a quick look around, he confirmed that Diablo was currently nowhere to be found.

Martin stood on top of the giant rubble pile for a moment.

"Fucking Johnny." He muttered.

With a step, Martin began to climb down.


	5. Samsa's some kinda wacked out crazy

**I really coulda (and shoulda) split this into two chapters, considering that the difference between the two parts is a hurtful kind of bothersome, but it's 1:11 in the morning and I'm waiting for the sleeping pills I took earlier to kick in, so read this really long sentence and be thrashing as to why.**

* * *

Thumping footstep echoes were all the Martin could hear for miles around.

It wouldn't be so bad, of course, if it weren't his feet making the thumping. It had been hours (, or at least it seemed that way,) since he'd demolished that building and Diablo had ditched him.

As it turned out, Hell was nothing more than a menagerie of skyscrapers and black asphalt street. Annoying, yes, but not really 'damnation'. Heaven was worse than this.

As there was nothing else to do, and aimlessly walking was getting boring, Martin plopped down onto the sidewalk. The stony roof above was hard to get used to. It was like being trapped underground.

_Heck, maybe I _am _underground, _Martin thought. _Maybe this is the center of the Earth, or something, or-_

His eyes traveled to the top of the roof.

"Oh, god…" Martin whispered.

Stuck into the middle of the giant red roof was a colorless, disembodied eyeball. It flicked around; twisting back and forth, like it was trying to watch multiple things at once, taking totalitarianism to a Good-Lord-Make-It-Stop new level.

Martin slowly stood back up, and, never taking his eyes off the larger one above, tried to walk away without being noticed.

Suddenly, the eye twisted and stared at Martin directly, and Martin knew fear. No, not fear, embarrassment. The eye, it was watching him, and he was such a mess, what with his marred visage and tattered textiles and all his flaws. It couldn't see him like _this, _nothing could see him like _this._

He didn't even bother to throw his needle. Martin just ran.

Those dull footsteps of his turned to heavy breathing and hot buzzing in his ears. He closed his eyes, not caring where he was going, so long as it wasn't back _there._

And then:

Ka-THUMP-KRRRRRCH-CRACK!!

Martin flew tens of feet backwards. His innards shook from the impact onto the black street. His head heard a new thumping, now his heart beating painfully from the shock. Even through the thumping, however, Martin was still aware of new noises he hadn't heard yet.

He sat up, bones painlessly misplaced inside him. There were, in fact, people in Hell. They walked along the sidewalks, strolled into buildings, and all out acted like they had never been eternally damned. It was like normal Earth.

Well, almost normal.

There was this one guy with a major dent in the front of his car. He was screaming and yelping, but no one seemed to want to help him. Smoke billowed out from the crushed hood of the car, and Martin thought, _He'd of had to hit a man to make a dent like that._

Martin let that sink in as the man rushed towards him, angry.

_Oh. Oops._

The man was at Martin in an instant, pointing his finger right in Martin's face.

"WHAT THE FUCK'S YER PROBLEM, SHITFACE?! I'M JUST DRIVIN' ALONG, 67 MILES OVER TH' SPEED LIMIT, AND YOU SMASH RIGHT INTO MY CAR!!"

The pointing was bothering Martin. "Um, could you please stop-"

"FUCK OFF!! YER PAYIN' FER THIS!! YA SONOFABITCH!!"

The man poked Martin in the nose.

And that was it.

Before the man could continue screaming anymore, Martin shoved him in the chest. The man looked surprised and even angrier before a grey block shoved him out of sight.

An unmarked bus had crunched into the man, effectively hurting and removing the man. The bus didn't stop, pulling away from Martin, but even from the distance, Martin could barely see the man sticking his middle finger up.

"Oh, be civilized, will you?" Martin muttered.

A deep voice spoke. "Terrible, aren't they?"

Martin turned around to see Diablo standing behind him. None of the people on the streets seemed to notice him.

"It's funny. Hell is only what they make of it, and they make it _this._" Diablo gestured to the world around him, and Martin had to agree. It was amusing.

"So what, I have to _stay _with these brainless assholes?" Martin asked. Eternity in a Hell that he truly understood the torture of; _excruciating._

"No, we've gone over this. You're going back." Diablo deadpanned.

Martin stared for a moment. "Wait… back to Earth?"

Diablo shrugged. "If you really want to call it 'Earth', then yes. Back to Earth."

"I… I didn't know… I could _do_ that…"

"Well, it's not easy, but it's been done before."

Martin grimaced and bowed his head. "Right. Just like Johnny…"

"Oh, stop complaining, will you?" Diablo said. "You're not _exactly_ like him, anyway."

Martin raised his head again, one eyebrow sticking up. "How?"

"What, you need proof?" Diablo twisted his teeth-mouth into a smile. "Fine. For one, Johnny never purposefully caused _too _much damage here. You threatened me and demolished a building."

"And I killed someone." Martin chimed in.

"No you didn't, and so did Johnny."

Martin's right eye twitched again.

"Two," Diablo pointed to the giant roof eye. "Johnny saw the eye also. But he wasn't affected by it. You felt what everyone else here did."

Martin felt what that meant and it made him ill.

Diablo felt it too. "Johnny was better at being dead than you are."

In the back of his head, Martin felt a question of why there were no other cars on the street they were standing on. "I'm… worse than…. _JOHNNY_…"

Diablo made his morphing toothy smile larger. "If you really want to call it that."

He didn't know what in the world he was imagining about his being dead, but it certainly wasn't _this_.

For a moment, Martin was back alive with Johnny, and he was crying. And in the next, he was back in Hell, talking with Satan, crying.

"This is one of those no-win situations, isn't it?" Martin said. His words were soft enough to be near inaudible.

"That's how life is," Diablo said. "Even the afterlife. Goodbye."

In a ripping storm of bloody smoke, Hell became a blur and then went away. Martin was still crying, the thread was still in his hand, and he knew that he was falling again, only he was falling up. It was different from before, and less scary, because he knew what to expect. He knew what to expect, and he wanted to quit and go anywhere than back, and-

He was there.

* * *

Johnny was suspiciously happy as he walked down the street, twirling his trademark bloody knife in his hand.

He even whistled.

It was great. _So productive tonight,_ Johnny thought, _killing that church guy _really _lifted my mood…_

The night was crisp and delicious. Even he had to admit that it was nice. Johnny passed house #779, Squee's house. The maniac could practically hear the little boy shaking like a leaf from the sidewalk.

Johnny smiled. He'd probably visit later tonight.

But first things first.

Past Squee's slightly less unkempt house sat Johnny's shack. It was ugly, uncomfortable, reeking of terrible smells, and Johnny hated it, but it was home, and that's where he was headed.

Johnny walked towards his door, looking forward to watching bad late night TV, when the curtain in the window moved. Johnny froze.

Two explanations stood for the moving curtain. One: there was a wind blowing in his house. And that was impossible, he didn't own a fan, and he was sure he'd never opened another window. That left Two: someone was in his house.

And whether it was one of his old victims crawling his way to freedom or Mr. Samsa again, he would kill it.

With stealth and skill he wasn't aware he had, Johnny slid his door silently open and observed the life form.

It was…

Mr. Samsa.

"Oh." Johnny said. He laughed at his own paranoia. "Heh. Heh heh. Oh, Samsa, you scared me."

Johnny readied his knife.

"Stop making me kill you…!!" he yelped. Johnny cocked his arm back, milliseconds from ready to strike-

Suddenly, Mr. Samsa cracked in half. This threw Johnny off. The little cockroach's legs flailed uselessly, trying to escape. Johnny bent forward and saw that something had struck Mr. Samsa right in his middle, something small and sharp, a thread trailing off. This small object, Johnny figured, must have been thrown at Mr. Samsa, but someone would've had to…

"…"

Johnny stood up, rigid. With a flip of his hand, the light bulb overhead flickered on, and Martin was there.

Johnny was honestly surprised. "Thought I'd killed you…" Johnny said. He saw the scar on Martin's face and noted that he was different than before.

Martin opened his mouth. "I AM NOT WORSE THAN YOU." The words boomed. Martin's left eye twitched.

"How very nice for you." Johnny said, aiming his knife. His body moved fluidly through the air, diving over the dead victim and at Martin, knife pointed forward. Martin swept his arm forward. There was a clang of metal, and Johnny flew to the side, his trajectory changed. Martin stayed rigor.

Johnny bounced against the wall and thumped onto the floor. His knife flunked against the wooden floor.

Martin gripped the needle in his hand and pointed it toward Johnny.

Slowly, Johnny got up. "Ugh. Whatever. I'm done for tonight." He cracked his neck.

Martin lowered his arm.

Johnny C. walked over to his couch, plopped down on the most undamaged part, and clicked the remote control. The TV lit up.

Martin looked at the maniac sitting on his sofa.

He.

Was.

Not.

Worse.

Than.

_That._

Martin turned around.

Out of his peripheral vision, Martin saw a nasty gash in the wall where Johnny's knife had moved.

Martin looked at his needle and frowned. He stepped outside silent.

Johnny leaned back on the couch.

* * *


	6. Is It 'Cord' or 'Chord?

**God, this is my favorite so far. Writing it was fun, reading it is the least painful of any of my previous works... GAAAAH! I've been playing Half-Life like crazy, and I think it's _really_ affecting my writing. Thankee, Valve!!**

* * *

Creaking hinges are the worst noise in the world.

If Martin was, at the time, capable of coherent thought, that is what he would think as his apartment door squealed open.

But he wasn't, so he didn't, and he ignored it.

Martin leaned forward. His legs almost didn't react and he was about to tip over when he stumbled, unintentionally stomping the ground. His arms swayed and the needle flipped around like a silly little pendulum.

Then Martin leaned forward again, starting the whole thing over, taking slow, idiotic steps. That was how he got here from #777, and that was how he would walk for a while.

Sluggishly, Martin made his way into his square studio apartment in that tip-catch-stomp style.

There wasn't much to look at, and there never was before, in Martin's home. An old analog TV with fake wooden paneling sat on a cheap kindling table against the wall. A small kitchen-type counter held a microwave and a small refrigerator. A cramped bathroom and closet stuck next to each other. And a cheap futon, currently converted into a bed. Martin was never a very rich man, and it showed here.

Actually, he was poor, but he didn't think of that. He didn't think. All that mattered was that, to his wracked, fatigued brain, sleep was good, and a mattress was good to sleep on.

Martin flopped onto the futon, completely unconscious before he hit the couch. Had he been able to stay awake a few seconds longer, his head would've cleared, he would've understood what had happened, and everything that was going to happen, and his life would be much easier.

But he couldn't, so he didn't, and it won't.

* * *

"I couldn't find him anywhere, man." Austin said.

Donald grabbed his chin and leaned back into the seat. "Well, maybe Marilyn's got 'im. Just wish she had a cell phone…"

A face appeared in Donald's side window. "Nothing," Marilyn said. "Martin's gone."

Austin scratched the back of his perfectly coiffed head. Donald stroked his moustache, sitting in his Volkswagen. Marilyn stood with a anxious trickle in her eyes. No one spoke for a few moments before Marilyn said:

"Can't we call the police?"

Donald shook his head. "We can only file a missing person's report after 48 hours without hearing from Martin. So far, it's only been…" Donald glanced at his watch. "…about six."

"Ahhhh, that's crazy!" Austin said. "We _know _Martin; he doesn't pull this stuff. Something's wrong."

Marilyn looked around. "This is a bad neighborhood…"

She was right. All around were houses, (or shacks, depending on how you define rickety wooden domiciles,) Donald's van was parked on the curb, Austin and Marilyn standing around it. The vicinity was dirty, with rotting grass lawns and poorly kept cars parked in crackled driveways. The sun had gone down much earlier, the night reclaiming the town. It seemed like the time and place where anyone could get senselessly assaulted, even a bunch of peace-loving Christians like them.

"Now hold on," Donald got out of his van. "Maybe Martin got invited in somewhere, or got a bite to eat."

"But he'd _call_." Austin said.

"Fine, fine; just don't assume something bad happened to him, alright?" Donald said. He smiled, curling his moustache. "God protects us, remember?"

Marilyn wasn't convinced. "Oh, why'd we even come to this part of town?"

Austin and Donald looked at each other and shrugged. "Pastor Richter told us to."

That was a satisfactory answer; at least, for most people from their church, it was. Marilyn wasn't so sure. Something about just doing what others tell you to without thinking about it-

"Mary!" Austin said, shaking her shoulder. "C'mon, Marilyn, we're praying."

Marilyn quickly stepped forward and grasped Donald and Austin's hands, forming a small three-person circle. They all closed their eyes, and Donald began to speak his traditional prayer for help, strength, etc.

Marilyn snuck one eye open and saw Austin was doing the same thing. Their opened eyes caught and they nodded oh-so-slightly. Donald continued his prayer monologue and wrapped it up with a customary "Amen."

"Alright," Austin said. "I'll check around here first, ask if people have seen him anywhere. Marilyn, why don't you go to Martin's apartment, see if he's been there."

Marilyn's eyes opened a bit wider. "But… I've never been there before."

"Then it's time you have." Donald said. "I'll go back to the church, see if he stopped there or something."

The three didn't say anything else to each other; they weren't accustomed to. Donald got in his van and drove away, Austin walked toward the rows of unsightly housings, and Marilyn stood for a moment.

The earlier train of thought in her head was eager to continue to its conclusion, but she couldn't think of that now.

Martin was missing, and they needed to find him.

* * *

It was the smell that woke him first, not the knocking.

A smell like a dirty, unwashed body, either dead or alive, wrapped in old cloths. It took Martin a second to realize that the smell was coming from him. Then he noticed the knocking.

Martin sat up, trying to drown out the knocking and remember what had happened. It wasn't so hard this time; he had been killed by Johnny, he went to Heaven, then Hell, then back to Earth, and somehow, he'd gotten home, and fallen asleep.

But…

Maybe he'd dreamt it?

In the midst of the non-stop knocking, Martin saw that he still held onto the shiny razor-sharp needle, the thread looped to it tracing back and twisting around his other hand. He knew that the face scar was still there too, and his body had that stench.

The knocking became thunderous, angry and annoying. Martin got up to answer the door, thinking that he should put the thread and needle down, lest he look excessively crazy.

But he held the needle still as he opened the door.

Martin was going to say "Yes?", but the fat man in the doorway got to scream first.

"ZURIAH!! You're a week late on … Good God, man! What happened to you?!?"

_So I _do_ look crazy,_ Martin thought. "I just took a little beating's all." Martin was surprised at how easily the lie slid out his mouth. But it wasn't entirely a lie…

"Fine! That's your problem! Doesn't mean you get t' skip on the rent! Fifteen hundred by tomorrow or you're evicted!!" The fat man said. Mr. Graham, the landlord. He was disgusting in his movements and spat when he screamed, which was all he was doing.

"Look, I'm not exactly loaded, and… and I just had a _really _tough couple of hours… Do you think maybe we could talk about this later?"

Graham cocked his head ever so slightly before resuming his screaming. "HEY! _I'm_ your _landlord!!!_ That means you respect the shit outta me while I treat you like a bastard child!!!"

Martin wasn't sure he'd heard right. "Wh… What'd you say…?"

Graham poked Martin in the chest, and the speeding man from Hell was pointing in his face, and the needle sang its pendulum hymn. "What're you, deaf!?! I said I'm THE OWNER, YOU PAY ME RENT!! YOU DON'T LIKE IT, KILL ME LIKE THAT JACKASS IN HELL!!!!"

Martin recoiled. "How do… _How do you know about that?_"

"KNOW ABOUT WHAT?!? JUST PAY ME!!!!!!"

Graham poked Martin again, and the speeding man was there, and he heard a noise from behind. Graham got furious when Martin looked behind and saw the TV emit static. No one had turned the TV on.

A million voices said _Kill him_.

So Martin did.

Graham tried to poke Martin in the chest again, but never got to. A quick swipe of Martin's needle sent the sharp object through Graham's wrist. The needle struck through and, like a grappling hook, stuck out the other side. Martin yanked the thread and ripped Graham's hand off. The force from Martin's assault caused the shocked fat man to tumble forward. Graham smashed into the floor, shaking the whole apartment.

Martin pulled Graham's disembodied hand off his needle with ease. Graham's remainng hand gripped his wrist, dumbly trying to stop the bleeding. There was a lot of blood.

The fat man looked at Martin and saw him as a silhouette, black and tall and formless with his rotted clothes. Martin's eyes shone white, like an animal over prey. But Graham didn't realize that. He only tried to scream.

Martin didn't let him.

He stabbed the needle into Graham's throat, clogging his vocal cords with blood, carving things into his flesh. Martin began to scream:

"SHUT UP!!!!!! I'M NOT WORSE THAN HIM!!!! THAT MAN FUCKING _DESERVED_ IT!!! I HATE GOD!!!! I HATE DIABLO!!!!! I HATE THIS PLACE _SO MUCH!!!!!_ GAAAAAAAAHHH!!!! _AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_"

Flicks of tissue and fluids clung to Martin's clothes. Blood seeped and sunk and stained the carpet. The fat man's body became torn and disconnected, ripped apart by Martin's needle and fury.

Graham died in a thousand pieces.

Martin's arm slowed to a stop and he no longer stabbed into living matter. He breathed hard.

Slowly, Martin realized what he did. He killed a man. For _real_.

Even more slowly, Martin realized that he didn't care.

With disdain, Martin saw the dead mess on his floor, bloody and warm.

It was sick, and he didn't want to do it, but Martin picked up the squelchy mass of dead Graham and rushed it to the closet. The TV static still droned.

With a kick, the closet door smashed open. Martin tossed the mangled corpse into the closet, staining all the other clothes inside. He had to make a couple of trips to get all of Graham into the closet, but eventually, the bulk of the dead fat man was in the small room. The blood in the carpet stayed, however. Martin had a feeling that he would never get it out.

The static was calling.

Martin slowly sat back down on the futon. The TV wasn't making any noise except for the static, but Martin was sure that he'd heard voices from it telling him to kill Graham.

But no voices now.

Martin stared attentively at the TV.


End file.
